I have a Victorian edition of a George Elliot novel Scenes of Clerical Life, published by Blackwoods ( those of the Blackwoods Magazine). Its pages are all intact, though the spine is loose, hence why it was on the 10p shelf at the second hand bookshop.I was happening to look inside the spine and found a piece of paper.

This is what I found:

What looks to be a fragment from a ledger dating from 1836-1838!!!!! And made of rag paper also. I bet I am the first person to see that since the book was bound!!!!

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

Saturn wrote:Wow, a real find Raphael, have you unfolded it, or is it simply that piece you've pictured?

That's a bookmark and a half!

That is the whole paper yes. Someone back in 1836 had obviously cut it out of some kind of ledger book. It is the oldest item I own! Imagine if it was of the Blackwoods who had actually wrote this ledger!

John....you did not live to see-who we are because of what you left,what it is we are in what we make of you.Peter Sanson, 1995.

That is awesome Raphael. Really cool find. I would go back to that store again. If you open the papers, take pics and post them.

"Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home."